The temperature hit 103 Tuesday for the visit of the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain and Princess Anne, who valiantly wore black gloves to the Herberger Theater, despite the heat. Air conditioning made the theater comfortable enough for the dressy crowd gathered to launch the local UK/AZ Festival. But the action onstage was sizzling almost as much as the weather outside. Director Sam Mendes, making his U.S. debut, staged an "Othello" with a semi-tropical quality.

A University of Wisconsin student was charged Thursday with cooking a live parrot in a microwave oven, apparently to get revenge against a fellow student. Chad Alvarez, 23, son of the school's football coach, Barry Alvarez, was charged with one count of intentional mistreatment of an animal resulting in death and was ordered to return to Dade County Circuit Court for a hearing June 1.

Shakespeare's genius in "Othello" is partly to keep us from asking when there's been time or opportunity for Desdemona to have slept with Cassio. (There hasn't been any.) But questions about what's going on in Lar Lubovitch's "Othello," danced by San Francisco Ballet in its Southern California premiere over the weekend at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, start at the very beginning.

October 15, 2006 | Phil Rosenthal, Phil Rosenthal is the creator of "Everybody Loves Raymond." He also directed the comedy video "The Final Days," featuring President Bill Clinton.

Starting any creative venture is difficult--a movie, a painting, a Sunday magazine feature. In 1996, we were starting a CBS sitcom called "Everybody Loves Raymond," and it was not what anyone would call a smash out of the gate. I knew that all shows needed a little time to grow, to try things on and see if they fit. But networks and studios don't really have that time. There was a particular studio executive who knew this and took advantage. Let's call him Iago.

Ted Lange knows there are people who will never see him beyond "The Love Boat." "There's a lot of skepticism, because I'm not known for (stage work)," said the actor. "I remember going to the New York Shakespeare Festival and they really didn't want to see me--you know, I'm sitcom. I read a scene from 'Romeo and Juliet' for Jack O'Brien at the Old Globe, and he said (with surprise), 'You're good . Why do you do television?' I said, 'Um, it's kind of a way to make a living.'

Watching a great Shakespeare play outside under the stars can be a remarkably civil and civilizing pleasure. When a servant brushes her mistress' hair just before bedtime, the two women fall into a discussion of men, ethics and relativity. Desdemona (Christina Haag), a devoted wife, offers that she would not deceive her husband for all the world. Brushing and thinking, the servant Emilia (Katherine McGrath) weighs her mistress' heartfelt opinion and decides it is not thought through.

You might have thought Shakespeare did an adequate job wrapping up his story lines, but here in Los Angeles, a property with the enduring box office of "Othello" is always fair game for a sequel. Taking up his quill to continue the Moor's tragic saga in "The Trial of Othello" at Theatre West is veteran producer-writer Sherwood Schwartz, creator of "Gilligan's Island" and "The Brady Bunch."